We’ve been in Mexico for about two months, and today, I realized that I must be getting used to it. As I was going up my dock from the boat on my way to coffee at Club Crucerious, I noticed how
spectacularly clear the water was around the boat near the security gate. I see this every day, and have come to pay it little attention, but today, the water was crystal clear, and the tropical fish were
everywhere. I stopped for a moment at the gate, and looked around. The sky was brilliant blue, the air was still and coolish, (65+/-) the water was flat, and across the bay the mountains were on fire as they so often are when the air perfectly clear. It was fairly early, and there was no one else around, and for just a little while I stood there and soaked it all in. These sights had me scrambling for a camera a month ago, but today, I just take the time to revel in it.
Living in Mexico has naturally taking some getting used to. These are, I believe, the happiest people I have ever seen. There is some sort of festival, carnival, or celebration going on here every week. We live at the beginning of the Malecon, a large wide walkway that runs along the water with a lot of art and statues along the way, and the Malecon is Festival central for the entire area. If it is not a political rally, then it’s a dance of some sort, with native dress and costumes. Boy do these people love to parade.
Of course everyone who watched the world news knows that La Paz has recently set the world’s record for making the longest continuous Burrito as attested to by the Guinness Book of World Records. The Burrito was 2.7 km long, and when they finally cut it up, it fed 23,000 people. You certainly didn’t want to work for the La Paz sewer department that next week. And for those folks who are really up on their world news, you already know that the Baja 1000 race took place just a couple of weeks ago, and for the first time in 40 years, a Mexican Team won the race. There was pandemonium in the streets, along with all those racecars going everywhere you looked. This may sound funny to you, who are
not as in the know, but the finish line of the 1000 mile race was at the Wal-Mart in La Paz, and the celebration spread throughout the town. It’s all anyone was talking about.
For those truly informed people with knowledge of the sea, you already know that another famous race ends up mostly here, although the finish line is in Cabo San Lucas. The race is the Baja Ha Ha. It’s a huge sailboat race that starts out in San Diego and finishes up in Cabo, but in Cabo during this time of year, dock
space goes for about $200/night, so most of the 200 sailboats come right on over to La Paz, and take out their joy and celebration for having lived through another race on La Paz, and for several weeks, its HA-HA this and HA-HA that, and parties every night to honor the noble men of the fleet. I am so tired.
I have been here over two months now, and have not completed two weeks of earnest work during that time. We have not even been out on our boat, we haven’t had time. I’ve never been so busy, doing nothing. But this is sure is a nice place to do nothing in.
We have sailors from all over the world here in our Marina. These is an unbelievable number of people from Australia here, and Brits, and Californians. A French couple that we got to know fairly well, just left last week to go back to Europe. They had been here for 3 years, and just couldn’t drag themselves away from La Paz and the Sea of Cortez. Jacque Cousteau referred to the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California) as the aquarium of the world, with more interesting sea life than any other place. Right now, you can take a ponga off the beach on the Malecon, with a guide, and go swimming with Whale Sharks in an afternoon. If you don’t know what a whale shark is, look it up, because they will amaze you, and its only
20 minutes from our dock. From the ponga you can go snorkeling in amongst the whale sharks, and two friends of ours were telling us that they touched two of them at the same time, they are so close. One girl was swept over by the big tail fin of one that was swimming away. These are the biggest fish in the
world, and you can go out and swim with them in an afternoon. WOW!
I would guess that few people would know that you can also go out in a little longer day trip to the islands at the head of La Paz Bay, and visit, and swim with sea lions. They say the babies in particular
will come up to you wanting to play. Man – we got to slow down and do some of these things.
But don’t let me lead you to believe that life here is without its challenges. I love the people down here, they are kind and considerate, polite and respectful, but there is one thing I wish they didn’t do so much of, and that’s speak Spanish. You know how language challenged I am; I have enough trouble speaking good English without having to take up Spanish. I did order breakfast once, fully in Spanish, and was very proud of myself, until the lady asked me how I wanted my eggs, and from there on I was
baffled. If I carefully read the signs, I can order a double quarter pounder with cheese at McDonald’s, but I can’t tell them to hold the pickles. It’s really tedious going to the grocery store and having to look at the pictures on the packages to see what’s inside. Buying groceries can take all day. And try to ask someone where the peanut butter is. That’s an interesting concept that the Mexicans don’t yet understand. They don’t know what to do with the stuff. In one store we found it with the baby food, and in another it was next to the Clorox.
We’ve spent numerous conversations trying to figure out the money down here. It’s funny to me, but hey use the dollar mark to price things in pesos. You’ll see a sign for a hamburger $100. Well, if you
are a sophisticated traveler like I have become, you know that this is 100 pesos, and not 100 dollars as
you would first think. With about 12 pesos to the dollar the math gets a little confusing. I wish they would just make it 10 pesos to the dollar, I could handle that, but no, it has to be 12. I am getting better at counting even in pesos. The money is quite pretty. It has little clear windows on some of the bills and each type of bill is a different color, and sometimes the same type bill will be different colors. The change is even more confusing to me. The change starts with 10 pesos down to 1 cent. That’s a lot of different change pieces. For a long time, when it came to paying for things I would just hold out a handfull of money and let them pick what they want. Now I only do that with the change. I am getting
better.
Volumes of books have been written about Mexican food, and all has not been said yet. It seems that everyone you talk to has a different favorite restaurant, specializing in different types of Mexican delights. Fish and seafood are particularly plentiful here and always fresh. We had a Marlin dip with our appetizer the other night. Famous in this part of the world is the Chocolata Clam. It is brown as you might expect, very big, and with an amazing taste. Pongas leave the beach every morning along the Malecon and will catch huge, game fish within a couple of 100 yards of the shore. We were driving along the Malecon and saw a Manta Ray in waist deep water.
One part of the Mexican food experience has been a little bit scary to us, and therefore we have only ventured near it once. That is street food. You can ride through Centranario, or downtown, and there are little food carts everywhere, along with venders for almost anything else you can imagine. But the food smells so good, and has almost sucked me in on any number of occasions. The little old women who work the carts are all bent over and feeble, and the question naturally arises as to their ability, or
willingness to choose quality or even meat of known type. Somewhere between the restaurants, which rival any I have eaten in anywhere, and the street vendors, which I have not yet felt comfortable in trying, are the open air restaurants. Sometimes they are not really in buildings, but between buildings,
and under tents or lean-tos. No one needs much of a roof here since it never rains. It has not rained a drop since we have been in Mexico, but it did dew rather heavily on at least two different occasions, so these permanent outdoor restaurants are quite abundant. One day when we were trying to get our car
washed, we had a little time to spend near a grouping of these outdoor restaurants, and we were starving. We were also in one of those “what the hell, let’s give it a try” moods. It was an open grill
that had the flesh of the ages seared into its very being, and when it was not even cooking anything, it
smelled great. After much consideration, and study of the menu, which was written with a crayon on a piece of cardboard, needless to say, in Spanish, Edie carefully choose what she suspected to be cheese quesadilla, and I went all the way and ordered the specialty of that part of town called the Super Burro.
The lady that cooked up that meal was so skilled that she didn’t even use cooking utensils to turn the
quesadilla, she did it with those bare work worn fingers with such speed and agility that it must be considered an art form. Edie said that it was the best quesadillas that she had ever eaten, and as you
know, Edie being a vegetarian, theorized that it must have been because of all the juices that ran over
from the Super Burro. Now let me talk to you about the Super Burro. The thing started with a tortilla that had to be between 18’ and 24” in diameter. She spun that thing over her head like a pizza chef, and plopped it on the grill. The thing was so big that it made a sucking sound as she hurled it next to the
quesadilla. Next she took out several vats of different types of meat looking stuff, and heaped large quantities of each onto the tortilla in one long straight row, along with what appeared to be plant
materials and specialty sauces. And then she let them all cook together. After a while she rolled it all up into a long burrito looking thing that had to be doubled up twice to get it on a single platter. And that’s what you call a Super Burro. I never asked the type of meat that was on it, I don’t think I really wanted
to know, but it was one of the better tasting things I have ever eaten, and it was so big and so good, and I couldn’t stop eating, and I was dying, that I pledged to Edie that I would never eat anything again for as long as I lived. It was really a great meal. I am afraid to go back, and I have never told a single one of my friends that we ate there, for fear of what they might say or tell me.
Well I hope this little capsule of life in Mexico has made you more intelligent for having read it. Keep in touch. I have not been very good at it, but you can see, I am very busy, eating and doing stuff. Till next time, we remain ‘gringos in paradise’.
Larry and Edie
